Chapter 3
Kelly was exhausted when he got home the next morning.
His first day back from vacation had been fairly uneventful...there was the call out to the Wilson Street exit...another car accident...a kid stuck behind a bookcase. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
Until they got back from the bookcase run.
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There was a woman waiting in front of Station 51.
"Hey, Lieutenant..." Mills said. "Isn't that the lady you pulled out of the car this morning?"
Kelly squinted into the sun...and he saw that, yes...the woman that had swung between hysteria to catatonia and back to hysteria again was standing in front of the firehouse.
Whaddya suppose she wanted?
Severide pursed his lips together as he jumped down from the Squad and shrugged off his gear. It was ninety frickin' degrees out...and he'd just had to pry a bookcase off the wall and move it enough to get to a skinny five year old who thought that would be the perfect place to hide for hide and seek. He was sweating and all he wanted was to hit the shower...not taking a social call.
But he squared his shoulders and walked toward the woman. When he stopped in front of her she dropped her eyes...and looked up at him like a nervous schoolgirl.
"Can I help you?" he asked politely.
The woman giggled...like a nervous schoolgirl.
"Hi." she squeaked.
Oh...God...
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"Can I help you?" he asked again.
The woman cleared her throat...and answered in a shaking voice.
"I just...I just...I just...wanted...to...thank you." she stammered. "For saving my life."
Kelly gave her a little smile.
This happened every once in a while. The people they rescued came around to thank them.
"It's my pleasure..." he said, giving her the standard answer. "That's my job."
The woman giggled again.
"What's your name?" Severide asked.
"Dorrie..."she answered. "Dorrie Weinhart..."
"My name's Severide..."
Dorrie looked up again through downcast eyes.
"I know...it said on the back of your coat." she told him in a shaky voice.
"You can call me Kelly..." he said, instantly regretting the words the moment they came out of his mouth.
Dorrie was giggling like a twelve year old.
Please, God...don't let either of his girls turn into that...
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"I just really wanted to thank you..." Dorrie said. "I want to do something nice for you..."
"That's not necessary." Severide said quickly. "I told you...it's all part of my job."
"But...but maybe I can cook you dinner...or something...or..." Dorrie went on.
"We're not allowed to accept gifts." Kelly told her. "It's against union by-laws."
That may not be one hundred percent accurate...sometimes people sent cookies or candy or stuff...but there was something off with this woman/child. She looked like she was thirty-five...but she acted like she was a pre-teen.
The sooner he could send her on her way, the better.
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"But...but..."
Kelly softened his voice...like he was talking to a child.
"Look, Dorrie..." he said. "I'm really flattered...but all this...it's not necessary. Like I said, it's all part of my job. So...I appreciate you stopping by like this...but I've a lot of work I need to do."
He raised his eyebrows, hoping she'd take the hint.
She looked up at him...tears swimming in her eyes.
Oh...shit...he thought. What now?
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Over by the Squad, Clarke could see the Lieutenant was having a rough time. So he whistled loudly.
"Hey! Lieutenant!" Clarke called out. "Can you help me with this please?"
Severide breathed a sigh of relief.
"Excuse me." he said to Dorrie. "I need to go."
And he turned around and jogged back to the open door of the firehouse.
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Dorrie watched him go...a single tear running down her cheek.
Was that really a rule? About no favors? Or did the handsome Lieutenant just not like her?
No...no, he must like her. He told her to call him 'Kelly'...and he saved her life! He must like her!
She raised her hand and gave a shy little wave...just opening and closing it a little bit. She'd do something nice for Kelly...maybe not something so obvious...something more subtle. Then he'd have to reciprocate...maybe he'd take her to a movie...or out to dinner...or out for drinks!
She turned around and walked down the block to the bus stop...looking over her shoulder one last time...memorizing every detail about Kelly.
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Kelly slapped Clarke on the shoulder.
"Thanks for the assist." he said. "I didn't think I was gonna get rid of her."
"She looks like she's not exactly playin' with a full deck." Clarke observed. "What'd she want?"
"To cook me dinner." Severide replied.
Clarke gave a snort.
"I'd like to be there when you tell that to Alyssa." he said. "Sorry, Honey...I won't be home for dinner...I got a hot date tonight!"
"Bite me...and here I was...gonna offer to buy you a beer after shift for helpin' me out."
Clarke was immediately contrite.
"Okay...I'm sorry..."
Now it was Severide's turn to laugh.
"No...no, no, no...you blew it, Buddy." he said. "But don't worry...I'll let you make it up to me."
So the two men went to work, checking the equipment...all the little chores they did after a run...bantering back and forth all the while.
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Kelly dropped his bag beside the back door and headed for the kitchen. He could smell fresh coffee and he didn't hear any noise. This must be one of those rare mornings when all four kids slept in past seven.
But Alyssa was up...and that's all that mattered.
"Hey..." he said as he stepped into the room.
His wife came around the table and stepped into his waiting arms...and he pulled her close and tangled his fingers in her long, still damp hair.
It was so good to be home.
"Hey..." Lyssa whispered as she slid her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest.
She loved to listen to his heart beating...strong and steady...just like him.
"You okay, Honey?" she asked.
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Kelly knew she worried constantly when he was on shift. She'd gotten way too many calls over the years. Calls telling her he was hurt and to run down to the hospital. The last time was just this past January...when a ceiling had collapsed. Kelly had injured his ankle...and Capp lost his life.
They were still dealing with the emotional fall-out from that horrible accident. Nothing was the same. Capp had served at Station 51 for years...and there was a void that would never be filled. The new guy, Newhouse...was good. He was an expert diver...and he had good instincts. He was fast on his feet...and he could get out of a tight spot. But a Squad was a tight team...and you had to be able to anticipate one another's moves...read the tone of the other's voice. It was hard to get the right mix. New Guy was doin' okay...but it wasn't quite there yet.
And there was a lot of other stuff too...all inextricably tied together. A lot of hard feelings.
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"Kelly? Are you okay?" Alyssa asked again.
He placed a soft, sweet kiss against her hair.
"Yeah..." he said. "It was just a long shift."
She gently led him over to the table and pulled out his chair. Kelly sat down and wiped his face with his hands while Alyssa poured the coffee. She set a big, steaming mug down on the table and sat down beside him.
"Tell me..." she said.
And he did...the two kids who decided to go swimming in a retention pond...the car fire in a vacant lot...the kid trapped behind the bookcase. And he told her about the call over on Wilson and the Honda teetering on the rail.
He told her about the victim showing up at the firehouse...and offering to make him dinner.
Alyssa just shook her head.
"I think Jeff was right." she said...referring to Clarke's comment about the girl not playing with a full deck. "She sounds a little 'off'."
That about summed it up.
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"How 'bout you?" he asked. "You stay outta trouble?"
She just groaned and rolled her eyes.
"How much trouble can you get into with a pile of laundry the size of Mt. Everest?" she asked. "And chasing four kids in four different directions?"
Kelly chuckled. There was always plenty to do at the Severide house...and laundry was a never ending battle.
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"But I did manage to go and see Veronica for an hour or so." Alyssa said softly.
Veronica was a sad story...and part of that 'inextricably tied together' stuff. About the time Alyssa had befriended her...Trey Wilson came on as a Candidate on Truck. It had started out great...at the firehouse at least. The guy looked like he really had the chops to make a good...even a great firefighter.
But it all hit the fan when it came to light that their Candidate had been using his girlfriend as a human punching bag for three years. And that girlfriend turned out to be Veronica.
The guys had tried to handle it 'in-house'...to try and protect the Candidate's career...but it was no use. After the accident where Severide was injured...and Capp was killed, things went from bad to worse. Trey had nearly beat Veronica to death, then left her locked in the bathroom of their apartment. God knew how she did it...hurt as bad as she was...but the girl managed to break a window and crawl three stories down a fire escape. Then she walked ten blocks to Alyssa and Kelly's house.
Now she was in the hospital...in the psychiatric ward...fighting the depression and trying to undo all the damage that had been done psychologically from having spent over three years living in hell. And the once promising Candidate had traded turn-outs for a prison jumpsuit at the County Jail.
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"How's she doing?" Kelly asked, before he took a sip of his coffee.
Lyssa shrugged.
"Her family got her into a private facility...somewhere out around Itasca. They're taking her there on Monday."
"That's pretty far out there..."
At least an hour from the city...maybe more.
Lyssa shrugged again.
"She showed me the brochure...and I looked the place up on line. It seems nice. She's still got a long way to go." Alyssa said with a sigh. "But her dad bought her a tablet...and a keyboard. She started writing again."
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Veronica had always wanted to be a writer...that's what she told Alyssa when she had stayed at their house for almost three months after she got away from Trey. The first time anyway...before she went back. But Trey had to control every part of her...and he may have got rid of her computer and her hundreds of books. But he couldn't stop her mind from working...so for three years...whenever she could get some money out of him she went and bought pencils and notebooks. She filled over a hundred with stories written out long hand...escaping into a fantasy world where strong, brave, honorable men rescued lovely maidens from evil, treacherous villains.
But it all came crashing down when he had found the notebooks. He was furious...that she had been keeping this from him...that she had been thinking about another man...when she should have been thinking only of him, and how lucky she was that he was willing to have her.
Trey began to tear the pages...and Veronica fought. She fought for what was hers...and she ended up fighting for her life.
When the detectives had come to talk to her in the hospital...after they had been to her apartment to collect any evidence they could use...the first thing she had asked was if her stories were okay. But Trey had torn the books to shreds...and Veronica had become hysterical. She railed and trashed in her bed and the doctor was afraid she'd pull out the IV's giving her fluids and nourishment. They'd had to sedate her.
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Kelly nodded again and took another sip of his coffee.
It was good that Veronica was going to get the help she needed.
But it was still a bitter pill to swallow that Trey had done this...and that he and the rest of the guys had actually been taken in by all his lies.
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Then he heard a noise coming from upstairs. He heard a gentle 'thud'...followed by 'bump, bump, bump' coming down the stairs...and finally, little feet 'slap, slap, slapping' on the hardwood floor.
"Daddy!" Lexi cried from the kitchen door.
The little girl ran to him and Kelly felt her crash into his legs, then try to climb up into his lap.
He reached down to pick his baby up while Alyssa moved his coffee mug out of the way.
Kelly sat Lexi on the table in front of him.
"I get out all by my-sef!" she proclaimed happily.
Uh-oh.